A protocol upgrade have been successfully launched by the privacy-focused cryptocurrency, Monero (XMR) on March 9, 2019. In their official website, Monero have recently explained, “Sending and receiving addresses as well as transacted amounts are obfuscated by default. Transactions on the Monero blockchain cannot be linked to a particular user or real-world identity.”
Due to some bug found earlier this week on Monero, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has recently decided to shut down transaction on the exchange. Kraken explained, “The Monero Vulnerability Response workgroup has received word of a wallet bug related to coinbase transaction. We are waiting on a patch to be released from the Monero team and will provide an update soon.”
A cryptocurrency mining company, CoinHive have shared in a blogpost that mining the privacy-focused Monero via people’s internet browser is no longer “economically viable”. The hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network on March 9 has to lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue as the drop in hash rate (over 50 %) has hit us hard.
A study conducted by two researchers, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil and Sergio Pastrana, have shared that the privacy-based coin, Monero are most popular among the criminals and mined almost 4.32% of the total Monero. They explain, “Common yet effective approach is to use legitimate infrastructure such as Dropbox or GitHub to host the droppers, and stock mining tools.”
A billionaire’s wife based in Norway has been kidnapped, and have demanded to receive $10 million worth of Monero as ransom. The wife of one of the richest men in Norway, Anne-Elisabeth have reportedly has been missing since October 2018. The incident has raised the concerns among government official regarding the use of cryptocurrency for illicit activities.
A private auction has been organized in Northern Ireland which features the sale of seized monero coins(XMR), the auction comes in 10 lots which each have a market value of around £670 (US$850). These include 167 Monero Classic, 167 Monero Original, 167 Monero O, and 1670 Monero V. This is good answer to ever-increasing problem of seized cryptocurrencies.
The merchandise store of a well-known video game Fortnite, Retail have announced that Monero (XMR) is now accepted as a payment option. And also supports the cryptocurrency payment service, GloBee which allows the retailers to accept a variety of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP) but the merchant only supports XMR for time being.
MoneroBlocks.info has recently revealed that 90% of Monero’s block reward have been mined. Moneropedia explained, “Miners need an incentive to mine. Because of the dynamic blocksize, competition between miners will cause fees to decrease. If mining is not profitable due to a high cost and low reward, miners lose their incentive and will stop mining, reducing the security of the network.”
The bitcoin and crypto service company that also extends ATM services, Bity, has announced the addition of Monero to its ATM network. The users would be able to purchase the crypto in all its ATMs. Recently, the crypto ‘Ether’ (ETH) was also added to the network. The users would be able to buy BTC, ETH, and XMR with CHF or EUR.
Ledger has recently announced in its official Twitter account the addition of privacy-based cryptocurrency to its Ledger platform which is compatible with the latest Monero GUI wallet. The technology adopted by the Ledger wallet permits the users to isolate their private key from the internet which keeps their account safe from the hackers.
